


Love Sends This Gift

by Mari_who



Category: Lore Olympus (Webcomic)
Genre: Death, Gen, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:07:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28000635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mari_who/pseuds/Mari_who
Summary: ...before you sendMy ashes under earthpour in strong wine,Then on the drunken urn write,“Hades, knowLove sends this gift to death”—And bury me and go.--Meleager of Gadara
Comments: 4
Kudos: 20





	Love Sends This Gift

**Author's Note:**

> This story centers on an original character, but our familiar Lore Olympus cast does appear!

After the cold and the burning in her lungs, there was a profound darkness; and sometime after that, the sound of running water. 

He saved me, she thought, in a burst of gratitude. He saved me again. 

But when she opened her eyes, she was alone.

***

She was outside, under a starless sky, and the river a broad slow ribbon reflecting nothing; there was only a cold blue haze of light, sourceless, as if the air itself was glowing.

Perhaps he had gone for help? Her clothes were dry. It must have been some time since…

She shook her head. It was hard to think about the accidents. Better to not think at all; he would come for her, all she needed was patience.

She sat, humming tunelessly, and waited.

Drew aimless circles in the sandy soil, and waited.

Tried to sleep but could not.

Time must be passing, but there was no sign of it in this strange place. There was silence, besides the slow lapping of the river. No birdsong. No trees rustling in the wind.

She drew an arrow in the soil to show him where she had gone (for when he could not find her he would surely worry) and set off, following the river downstream.

It was calm here, at least, she thought. It was nice to be alone for a while. Home could be so loud, even though it was just the two of them.

She remembered dancing in a circle at their wedding, under the bright sun, laughing, so full of hope and love it felt like she could fly.

She walked, and walked, and walked; and at last, from off in the mist, heard a sound that was not the river or her own footsteps. 

It was a quiet, rhythmic splashing, and beneath it the creaking of wood.

She hurried forward.

Through the mist she saw a dark shape coalesce, at the edge of the water - a void, an obelisk, a statue, details sharpening as she neared. 

Not a statue after all, but a tall man wrapped in a cloak. He was standing in a small, shallow boat, and holding the pole he must steer it with, a length of grey wood worn in the places where his hands would grip and pull. Pole boats like these were a familiar sight on the lake near her home, carrying fishermen and reed-cutters; but seeing one in this strange place only made it stranger.

She could not tell if the man was breathing.

"Excuse me," she said politely, fighting to keep her voice from trembling. "Do you know in which direction the village Kato Platanos lies? I'm...lost."

"Your destination lies across the river," the man said. His voice was deep, but it was just a man's voice; she could not understand why this surprised her. "Have you your fare?"

"Oh. I'm not sure." Had she been carrying her purse, when it happened? She patted her waist and hips but found nothing save the cloth of her chiton.

"Come here," the boatman said.

With nothing else to do - she could not face the thought of swimming, not after the accidents, and the water looking so deep and cold - she made her way across the sandy riverside, stopping before the flat boat's hull, her toes nearly in the water.

He leaned down and placed one long, thin hand over her eyes.

Darkness encompassed her, patient and profound, and pitiless. She could not breathe - there was nothing _to_ breathe. She was as light and dry as a dead leaf.

Before she could cry out, he took his hand away, and she blinked her eyes open to see two coins shining in his dark palm.

"It is enough," he said. "Come aboard."

She hesitated.

"My husband," she said to the dark boatman. "Will he be able to find me?"

"He will pass this way," the boatman said.

She took his hand, and stepped up into the boat; there was not much room aboard, but she found a low spot and sat there, keeping close to the center. She had no interest in looking at the water.

The boatman shifted, moved his long steering pole, and pushed; the boat slid easily, quietly away from the bank.

She had not thought the river so wide, from its bank, but the journey was long; and still there was no sound besides her breathing, and the pole cutting through the water. That blue light, she realized, was coming from the river itself; peering over the bow, she watched it slowly ripple and swirl below her. It must be shallow, to be navigable by pole-boat, but looking down it seemed to go on forever.

A dark shape moved beneath them, left to right. Some great fish, she supposed. It swept under the boat and vanished downstream.

No wind ruffled the surface of the water, but she was very cold; she curled up in her little spot, blowing on her fingers, and waited. 

Her mind turned, unbidden, to the accident.

She had been washing their clothes in the little stream that cut through the village. A warm day; the sun had been making its way down the sky behind her, and the cool water was pleasant on her hands. He would have been just returning from work, her husband the stonecutter, dust all over and eager for the evening meal.

She had let the fire burn out. She could be so forgetful.

He was angry with her. She remembered his voice, roughened by stone dust, and his calloused hands on her shoulders. His temper was short at the end of a long day; angry at the other workers, at the demands of his employer. 

He threw the laundry into the stream. She turned from him to gather it back before the current washed it away. She turned while he was speaking. Another mistake. 

If she could only _stop making mistakes_.

She tripped. Clumsy. He held her - her arm, her chiton - and she tried to get up, but they were jumbled together and surely he was trying to help her, but the angle was wrong, the pressure - her face in the water -

It was an accident. 

When he found her, he would cling to her, and cry. That was the worst part of it. Her guilt was enormous, all-encompassing. Someday, she feared, he would not forgive her. And what then? What was she without him?

“There is your destination,” the boatman said, and she looked up.

“Oh,” she said, faintly. “Oh, no.”

And knowledge came down on her like a blow, when she saw the other shore, and what awaited there; the massed, grey crowds in their rags, wandering to and fro, some weeping, some raging. Their paleness and staring eyes. And the beings that stood among them, so tall, blazing color among all that grey; winged, puissant, commanding.

Then she cried, and knelt at the boatman’s feet begging him to take her back.

But there was no going back. Not from this place. 

Not ever.


End file.
